Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Routine Hard-Boiled, 19 Aug 2002
Book number 11 in the 18-volume Lew Archer series is the first of MacDonald's books I've read. Published forty years prior to my reading, it's aged fairly well as a highly convoluted Chalderesque hard-boiled tale. The tough and terse Archer is hired by an unpleasant rich man to investigate the background of his daughter's fiancee. This is the catalyst for an investigation which roams from San Francisco, to LA, to Lake Tahoe, to Reno and Mexico, ultimately involving multiple murders.I have to say that I didn't find Archer an especially entrancing character. He's a fairly standard fictional detective: world weary, rough when he needs to be, emotionally tender, all topped off with a wide streak of compassion and smart mouth. As he runs around interviewing everyone, patterns start to emerge, people are first open with him and provide him with a morsel of information or two (enough to keep the plot going), then they inevitably turn on him and refuse to tell the whole truth. After a while, it just started to feel too contrived. Another irritant in the narrative is Archer's totally unrealistic ability to more or less use local police as his lackeys. One just doesn't get enough sense of his charisma, why all these cops are willing to tip him off, and why all these dames keep sending him vibes. I suppose that's why noir often seems to work better for me on film, you get to see that charisma, plus the overly complex plots get streamlined-usually with much better results. Certainly, in the case of this story, the hyper-Freudian motives that emerge at the end are hardly satisfying. Still, if you just can't live without your hard-boiled detectives, Archer certainly fits the mold enough to satisfy fanatics of the genre. It also may be that if one reads the series from the beginning, he emerges as a more fully realized character than he does in this single entry.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Only in the U.S.A.; Only in California...., 12 Jun 2003
Yeah, only in California are you likely to see a zebra striped hearse full of surfing teens. Although one of the important clues comes from the hearse, it doesn't really play that important a part in the story, but it's a symbol of the California lifestyle, especially the lifestyle of the teens & young adults. And this symbol has a bearing on the character especially of the young woman whose boy friend and potential husband Lew Archer is hired to investigate.Of course, you know that what appears to be a simple case for Archer is going to develop into a complicated skein of emotions and events including murder. You can also guess that there will be tragic overtones in the matter. Ross MacDonald is deservedly recognized as one of the elite of the hard boiled school. While there are resembances to Hammett, Chandler and even Parker to an extent, he is unique. While he presents you with a puzzle, he also makes you care for his characters. He may have you disliking and distrusting some of the characters such as the father and the boy friend in this book, and then have you caring in one way or another for them. If you haven't discovered Ross MacDonald yet, it's time you did. And if you have, you don't even need to be reading this review. (Although I'm glad you are)
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Another contribution to a sustained body of literary art, 2 Dec 2008
While this book stands on its own as a thoroughly good read, Macdonald's Lew Archer mysteries are each best appreciated as a complete body of work. Archer represents the generation shaped by the Great Depression and subsequent war, and this background informs his perspective on the post war generation blessed (or cursed) by an ever rising tide of material cornucopia. Here the emerging generation gap is central to a tale of indulged children and sceptical parents.
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